


Simon and Tom and the Bum Advice

by bethctg



Category: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-18
Updated: 2007-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 01:22:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1624085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethctg/pseuds/bethctg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom is desperate to prove to Lucy that he cares. Simon provides assistance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Simon and Tom and the Bum Advice

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to MM and PC for the encouragement, and to llyfrgell for the beta.
> 
> Written for Lise

 

 

_Friday, 10:07 a.m._

The pulsing chirp of his cell phone dragged Simon up from one of the hottest and most vivid Playboy mansion dreams he'd had in months. What was worse was finding Tom on the other end of the line, squeaking about some damn thing.

"What the hell did you do?"

Simon cocked an eyebrow at Tom's tone. He had _not_ just yelled in his ear at - Simon peered over at the nightstand where his clock radio sat - 10 o'clock in the damn morning.   
"Tommy. You did _not_ just yell in my ear at 10 o'clock in the-"

" _What. The hell. Did you do_?"

"I'm in my own damn bed, minding my own damn business, and I don't have a _clue_ what the hell-"

Tom cut him off. "Simon, what the hell is on my ass?"

A fleeting look of confusion passed over Simon's face, and then he squeezed his eyes shut in sudden remembrance. Huh... Now that was a fair question.  

 _Thursday, 11:49 p.m._  

Simon took a hit off the joint and held it out to Tom, even though he knew Tom wouldn't take it. He claimed pot gave him headaches, which Simon couldn't understand because it usually took _his_ headaches away. He figured he'd offer this one time anyway, since Tom clearly needed it: he and Lucy had just had their first big fight. Well, their first big fight as an official couple.

"Emotionally unavailable? What does that even _mean_?," Tom ranted. He scowled at Simon from his end of the leather sectional sofa. The two of them were crashed out at Simon's condo, something they used to do a lot more of before Tom and Lucy became joined at the hip a few months ago.

"It means," Simon said, taking another hit, "that even though she's got your balls in a glass jar, she still wants your _soul_."  

"She doesn't have my balls in a glass jar," Tom said, but Simon didn't think he sounded very convincing. 

Simon shrugged. "Okay." 

"She _doesn't_." 

"Whatever, man, don't get all riled up. I'm just observing." 

"Well, you don't know everything, Simon." 

Simon waved a hand at him dismissively, and they sat quietly for a few moments until Tom suddenly blurted: "Let's go out." 

Simon cracked open an eye. "We have a show tomorrow." 

"So?" 

"It's midnight, Tommy." _And I have a very nice buzz going..._  

"God, Sim, don't be such an old lady." 

That did it. "I'm driving." 

"You're stoned."

"Yeah, and you're a lightweight. I'd like us both to make it home in one piece after you finish drowning your sorrows a half hour from now."  

Tom considered this for a brief moment and apparently decided it was an accurate enough assessment. "So... where're we going?" he asked, as perkily as he could manage.   

***

Club Rapture was just the place that Tom needed: loud, pulsating with color, swarming with incredibly gorgeous women, and in possession of some of the finest bartenders in L.A. Within a couple of hours, they had introduced Tom to about five different ways that Hennessey could be mixed. Simon would have tried to slow him down, but he was enjoying himself a little too much as well.   

In fact, things were going so great that Simon almost forgot how depressed Tom got when he drank. They were cozied up in an overstuffed booth with some beautiful young ladies (being famous came in handy on such occasions), when Simon felt Tom tugging at his sleeve. When ignoring him failed to work, Simon dragged his attention away from the raven-haired woman who was loudly whispering something delightfully nasty in his ear and glared at Tom. "What?"   

"I miss Lucy." 

"Aw, _hell_ , no," Simon gave an exasperated eye roll and turned back to the brunette. 

"Sim," Tom leaned around him. "What if she leaves me?" 

Simon recoiled a bit from the liquor fumes that Tom was breathing on him. He caught the eye of the woman who was seated beside Tom. "Excuse me, what is your name?" he called to her over the pounding music.  

"Jenna," she purred. 

"Jenna," Simon said, "would you please tell my friend Tommy here that losing his clingy girlfriend would not be the worst thing in the world?"  

Tom gave her a mournful look, the kind of look that instantly made women want to nurture him. Simon wasn't surprised when Jenna laid a hand on Tom's thigh and eyed him with deep concern. He _was_ a bit taken aback, though, when the woman who'd just been draped on his own shoulder leaned across him and chimed in with a stricken "Oh, _honey_!"  

"What happened?" Jenna asked. 

"She said that I'm emotionally unavailable," Tom reported sadly. 

"Ohhh..." Simon's lady-friend gently responded. "Is it true?" 

"I don't know," Tom moaned. 

Simon heaved a sigh, threw back the last of his drink with a jerky motion, and gestured to a nearby server for another. 

"Well, it can't be _that_ true if you're sitting here missing her so much," Jenna pointed out in a drunken attempt at astuteness.  

Everyone but Simon nodded their heads in solemn agreement. Simon was too busy marveling at how easily Tom had turned their boys' night out into an episode of _Oprah_.  

"Do you love her?" Not-Jenna asked. 

Tom ground the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. "I think so," he said. 

Simon's fresh drink arrived and he took a swig. 

"Well, you've got to do something!" Jenna piped. "To prove it to her!" 

Tom peered at her through his hands. "Like what?" 

"You could propose to her," Not-Jenna offered. 

Simon nearly gave himself whiplash turning to gawk at her. "Are you out of your-?" 

"Or, you could get a tattoo with her name on it," Jenna broke in, climbing up a notch in Simon's drunken esteem. Anything was better than filling Tom's head with thoughts of rings and lifelong commitments. "That's what I did when my boyfriend broke up with me." She pulled her already low-cut top down an inch or so to display a small red heart with the name "Alan" scrawled across it in black letters.  

"Did it work?" Tom asked, clearly intrigued. 

"No." 

Miraculously, Simon refrained from choking her. 

"But that doesn't mean it won't work for _you_ ," she crooned, stroking Tom's arm. 

Tom looked to his friend for approval, and Simon once again risked spinal damage, this time from nodding his head as though his life depended on it.  

***

It had happened so fast. 

One minute they were sitting in their cozy leather booth, and the next they were downstairs in a too-bright room with an unhealthily pale guy named Wraith who didn't look any older than Simon's little cousin Marty. Wraith was billed as a "professional" tattoo artist, but the speed at which he ushered Tom into his chair - even though Tom could barely walk a straight line - would have set off serious alarm bells in a more sober quartet of people.  

Simon wasn't _so_ drunk, however, that he allowed the opportunity to pass to pull Wraith aside before he got started and slip him a fifty dollar bill. After all, he couldn't let his friend walk around with a woman's name on his ass for the rest of his life.  

 _Friday, 1:30 p.m._  

Simon and Tom arrived at the theater for the long day of dress rehearsal and a live taping, and hurried down the bustling back corridor leading to their dressing rooms.  

"I fail to see how this is entirely my fault," Simon hissed, still in a foul mood after Tom's frantic call that morning. "You were the one who got on the table."  

"Yeah," Tom spat back angrily, "well, I wouldn't have been able to get _to_ the table if you hadn't helped me."  

"Exactly - I was _helping_ you." 

"And I still don't understand how the word 'Lucy' would have been any worse than-" Tom was interrupted by Danny who grabbed his arm while rushing by.  

"Hey, listen, great news: your 'library cop' sketch made it into tonight's lineup!" 

Tom tried to look as thrilled as he should have been. "Excellent!" He grinned at Danny until he was out of sight, then his face collapsed into a look of utter distress.  

"You have to sit down for 'library cop', don't you?" Simon asked, deciphering Tom's expression at once. As someone who'd gone through the healing process of being tattooed, he could fully understand why the idea of sitting down any time soon would fill his friend with dread.  

Tom heaved a sigh worthy of a doomed man, scrubbed his hand over his face and tried to pull himself together. "Okay. Whatever. I'm gonna go track Lucy down and see if I can get her to talk to me."  

"Do what you gotta do, man." Simon was thoroughly tired of the whole situation. He started to walk away, and Tom stopped him.

"I don't have to tell you to keep this quiet, do I?" 

Simon looked at him reproachfully, and Tom hurried off, satisfied that his secret was safe. 

***

 

A short time later, Tom and Lucy were standing in a close embrace in Tom's dressing room. 

"So," Tom said smiling sweetly at her, "we're okay, then?" 

Lucy nodded and kissed him briefly. "For now..." she murmured, narrowing her eyes in mock severity. She snaked a hand down to Tom's backside and gave a gentle squeeze.

Tom yelped. 

Lucy was startled. "What...?" 

Tom had just begun to stammer an explanation when Cal suddenly burst into the room.  

"Tommy, we need to work on new blocking for 'library cop' if you're not gonna want to sit..." His voice trailed off at Lucy's nonplussed expression.  

Tom covered his face with his hands and silently wished for a redo of the last 24 hours. Because his eyes were shielded, he didn't see Jeannie and Dylan traipse into the room.  

"Tom, Dylan and I just heard the _juiciest_ piece of gossip," Jeannie said, barely holding her laughter in check. Dylan snorted.  

Lucy raised an eyebrow at Tom, and he threw his hands up into the air just as Simon poked his head into the room. "Anybody seen Cal? Oh- Matt's looking for you. Something about the blocking for Tom's sketch." 

Cal rushed out of the room, leaving Lucy looking more perplexed than ever. "Would somebody _please_ explain what is going on here?" she said far more calmly than she felt.  

Simon gave Tom an exasperated look. "You still haven't told her?" 

Lucy glared at Tom, and he rubbed the back of his neck. 

"Oh, man, what is the big damn deal?" Simon asked. He turned to Lucy. "Last night Tom and I got drunk and he ended up getting a tattoo on his ass. He wanted to get a heart that said 'Lucy' on it, but I paid the man to write 'juicy' instead."  

Lucy blinked. 

"I was drunk," Simon said, ending the conversation and stalking off. 

Lucy turned her attention to Jeannie and Dylan who might as well have been sitting in comfortable chairs with a bucket of popcorn between them. "Get out."  

They filed out reluctantly, and Lucy closed the door firmly behind them. 

Tom stood in the center of the room, one hand still rubbing his neck, the other fidgeting with the side seam of his jeans. 

"Sorry," he said quietly, hardly able to meet her gaze. 

She walked toward him with a barely hidden amused look. "Why are you apologizing? It's _your_ bum. I just don't see why you thought you had to hide it. Or _how_ you were planning to hide it, for that matter..." 

Tom reached out for her hand, and when she offered it, he pulled her in close and kissed her.

Lucy pulled away after a moment. "One question," she began, poking him gently in the center of his chest. "Why not your chest, or your arm, or something...?"  

Tom squirmed in embarrassment and shrugged. "It seemed like a good idea at the time," he offered lamely.

"Well, it _is_ one of my favorite bits," Lucy said quietly, nipping at his chin. She lowered her hand once more, and snickered when she managed to make Tom utter another of those adorable yelping sounds.

 


End file.
